The New Yorker, February 8 & 15, 2016
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PRICE $8.99 FEB. 8 & 15, 2016 ANNIVERSARY ISSUE FEBRUARY 8 & 15, 2016 9 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 35 THE TALK OF THE TOWN George Packer on primaries and partisanship; French doggy bags; Sonia Sotomayor; Ricky Jay; James Surowiecki on the stock market’s oil obsession. PERSONAL HISTORY Elif Batuman 42 Cover Story The head scarf, secularism, and modern Turkey. SHOUTS & MURMURS Hallie Cantor 49 Oicial Agenda for Your Sick Day LETTER FROM MILWAUKEE Matthew Desmond 50 Forced Out Eviction as a way of life. ANNALS OF INSOMNIA Patricia Marx 56 In Search of Forty Winks Tech gizmos designed to put us to sleep. A REPORTER AT LARGE Sam Knight 62 The Bouvier Afair An art-world insider’s controversial methods. REPORT FROM GROZNY Joshua Yaffa 72 Putin’s Dragon Is the ruler of Chechnya out of control? FICTION George Saunders 84 “Mother’s Day” THE CRITICS POP MUSIC Carrie Battan 94 The songwriter and performer Sia. ON TELEVISION Emily Nussbaum 97 “The People vs. O. J. Simpson.” A CRITIC AT LARGE Hilton Als 99 The d.j., producer, and m.c. Madlib. BOOKS James Wood 02 Americans looking for love in Europe. Dan Chiasson 05 The poetry of Frederick Seidel. 06 Briefly Noted POEMS Hagit Grossman 44 “On Friendship” Connie Voisine 80 “Messenger Star” COVER Liniers “Eustace Spreads Out” DRAWINGS Will McPhail, David Sipress, Zachary Kanin, Sam Gross, P. C. Vey, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Harry Bliss, Tom Cheney, Tom Toro, Barbara Smaller, Michael Maslin, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Liana Finck SPOTS Luci Gutiérrez CONTRIBUTORS George Packer (Comment, p. 35), a staf Patricia Marx (“In Search of Forty Winks,” George Saunders (Fiction, p. 84), the writer, is the author of “The Unwind- p. 56) is a staf writer and the author of, author of the story collection “Tenth ing,” which won the 2013 National most recently, “Let’s Be Less Stupid: of December,” recently reissued his Book Award for nonfiction. An Attempt to Maintain My Men- children’s book “The Very Persistent tal Faculties.” Gappers of Frip.” He teaches at Syra- Elif Batuman (“Cover Story,” p. 42) is cuse University. working on her first novel, entitled Sam Knight (“The Bouvier Afair,” p. 62) “The Idiot.” is a journalist living in London. Carrie Battan (Pop Music, p. 94) is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her work Hallie Cantor (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 49) Ian Frazier (The Talk of the Town, p. 37), has appeared in various publications, wrote for the third season of Comedy a longtime contributor to the maga- including the Times Magazine, GQ, Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer.” She zine, has a new book, “Hogs Wild: and the Web site Pitchfork. lives in Brooklyn. Selected Reporting Pieces,” coming out in June. Emily Nussbaum (On Television, p. 97), Matthew Desmond (“Forced Out,” p. 50) the magazine’s television critic, won a is the John L. Loeb Associate Profes- Joshua Yaffa (“Putin’s Dragon,” p. 72) is 2014 National Magazine Award for sor of the Social Sciences at Harvard. a New Yorker contributor based in Mos- columns and commentary. His book “Evicted: Poverty and Profit cow. He is also a New America fellow. in the American City” will be published Hilton Als (A Critic at Large, p. 99), a next month. Connie Voisine (Poem, p. 80) has writ- staf writer and a theatre critic for the ten three books of poems, including magazine, is also an associate profes- James Surowiecki (The Financial Page, “Calle Florista.” sor of writing at Columbia Universi- p. 40) writes a column on economics, ty’s School of the Arts. business, and finance for the magazine. Liniers (Cover) is an Argentinean car- toonist. His children’s book “Written Dan Chiasson (Books, p. 105) teaches Hagit Grossman (Poem, p. 44) lives in and Drawn by Henrietta” and the third at Wellesley College. His poetry col- Tel Aviv. Her poetry collection “Trem- volume of his daily cartoon strip, “Ma- lections include “Where’s the Moon, bling of the City” is due out in En- canudo,” were recently published in There’s the Moon” and, most recently, glish in March. English. “Bicentennial.” NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more than fifteen original stories a day. THE FRONT ROW PHOTO BOOTH VIDEO Richard Brody comments on scenes Peter Hessler writes about Davide A dispatch from Twins Days, a from Charles Burnett’s film “To Sleep Monteleone’s photographs of life on festival for twins, held every summer with Anger,” from 1990. the border of Russia and China. in Twinsburg, Ohio. SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.) 4 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 8 & 15, 2016 THE MAIL MODERNITY AT THE MET tive language, but when I think about “black mirrors” all I see are words that Calvin Tomkins, in his article on the dehumanize children with develop- revitalization of the Metropolitan Mu- mental disabilities, describing them seum’s Department of Modern and like something out of a horror movie. Contemporary Art, mentions the early Amanda Vivian death of Thomas Hess, who had been San Francisco, Calif. hired to run the museum’s collection of contemporary art (“The Met and In his piece, Shapin mentions Bruno the Now,” January 25th). My late hus- Bettelheim, a German child psycholo- band, Thomas Hoving, was the muse- gist who proposed the idea that autism um’s director until the late nineteen- was a response to emotional starvation. seventies. He believed that Hess, who But this controversial theory was not had been the editor of ARTnews and his only contribution to history: Bet- an advocate of the Abstract Expres- telheim, a Holocaust survivor, was one sionists, could bring a fresh empha- of the first people to inform the world sis on contemporary art to the muse- of the functions of Nazi concentra- um’s collection. He also felt that MOMA, tion camps, in the article “Individual since it focussed primarily on modern and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situa- works, was not a true contemporary- tions,” published, in the Journal of Ab- art museum. He thought that the Met, normal and Social Psychology, in 1943. as New York’s historical-art museum, As he saw it, these functions were to should take over MOMA’s contempo- terrify the German populace, train the rary collection, leaving MOMA to focus Gestapo and the S.S. in casual cruelty, on modern art. For Hoving, the con- and study how to most eiciently crush temporary could be illuminated by the human spirit. the historical. Theodor Holm Nelson Nancy Hoving Sausalito, Calif. New York City 1 1 RUG RATS UNDERSTANDING AUTISM Alex Ross, writing about Pierre Boulez, In Steven Shapin’s review of “In a examines the conductor’s legacy (“The Diferent Key,” by John Donvan and Magus,” January 25th). In 1973, I at- Caren Zucker, Shapin writes, “It’s a tended my first Rug Concert, Boulez’s searing experience to have a child who response to the conservatism of the doesn’t talk, who doesn’t want to be New York Philharmonic. He removed touched, who self-harms, who demands the concert-hall seats, filled the hall a regularity and an order that parents with pillows, and situated the orches- can’t supply, whose eyes are not win- tra of-stage. The result felt more like dows to their souls but black mirrors” going to a rock concert than to the (“Seeing the Spectrum,” January 25th). symphony, and inspired a deep connec- I’m autistic and have known many au- tion to some wild and crazy music by tistic kids and adults, and I can testify Purcell, Stravinsky, Webern, and Ravel. that none of us have black mirrors for Jef Bieber eyes. Some people don’t communicate Columbia, Md. through eye gaze, which is presumably what Shapin meant. Many of us don’t make eye contact because it hurts us. Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, Blind people don’t make eye contact address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to because they cannot see. People with [email protected]. Letters may be edited other disabilities (such as Parkinson’s for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume disease) cannot control the motions of of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter their eyes. I know that this is figura- or return letters. FEBRUARY 3 – 16, 2016 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN “Beauty is truth,” wrote John Keats, and the curators of the Cooper-Hewitt clearly agree: beauty is the theme of its Design Triennial. Don’t expect Grecian urns when the show opens, on Feb. 12. The sixty-three participants champion innovation, from China’s Trace Architecture Office (TAO) to the Israeli jeweller Noa Zilberman, whose gold-plated “wrinkles” nestle in facial creases, to the American Haas Brothers, who teamed up with craftswomen in a South African township to create the beaded bestiary above. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW B. MYERS taken by singers from the Metropolitan Opera’s young-artist program and Juilliard’s Marcus Insti- tute for Vocal Arts. (Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Juil- CLASSICAL MUSIC liard School. events.juilliard.edu. Feb. 9 and Feb. 11 1 at 7:30 and Feb. 13 at 2.) bury replaces Diana Damrau in the role of Leïla; American Lyric Theatre Alumni Concert OPERA Antony Walker. (Feb. 4 at 7:30.) • Donizetti’s so- The essential contemporary opera lab, which has called Tudor Queens trilogy returns for its sec- supported the development of works by emerg- Metropolitan Opera ond installment, “Maria Stuarda,” in the David ing composers and librettists for a decade, offers With operas like “La Traviata” getting a sexy, McVicar production.